Saturn moons spied from the side

Cassini captures Titan and Dione against the sixth planet's rings

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, hovers in front of the planet’s rings like a holiday ornament in this natural color photo snapped by the Cassini spacecraft and released on December 22. The hazy orange moon looms large next to bright, icy Dione – Saturn’s third-largest satellite – against the shadows of Saturn’s rings.

Titan looks murky because of its atmosphere – a puffy, blue-rimmed nitrogen shroud. The cloudy cover is darker at the moon’s north pole and slightly flattened at the moon’s south pole (see this Cassini image also released December 22). Organic compounds within the smoggy layer for

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